Tokyo's new international airport making waves

When Haneda first opened in 1931 it was the largest civilian airport in the whole country and during the Second World War became a major US Air Base after the invasion of Japan and the country’s surrender.

During its history it was extended extensively and remained the largest airport in the country and the primary air transport hub of Japan, as well as the nation’s air link to the rest of the world, until Narita International Airport opened in 1978, bringing to an end the international capacity of Haneda and relegating the airport to the handling of purely domestic traffic.

Despite this, the airport’s two terminals remained the primary bases for Japan’s leading airlines, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, as well as smaller carriers like Skymark, Skynet Asia and Air Do.

The airport has consistently been among the busiest in the world and in 2009 handled over 62 million passengers, according to Tokyo news reports.

It was for this reason that the airport was seen by the Transport Ministry to have great potential to continue the dominance of Tokyo as a regional transport hub, much like Dubai in the Middle East, Johannesburg in Southern Africa, New York in the North-eastern US and Chicago in the Midwest.

The role of a transport hub is more than just a title, but a status that yields real economic results for local businesses, the tourism market and national airlines.

In preparation for its new responsibilities, a fourth runway was added to the airport’s facilities, which effectively doubled Haneda’s 285,000-movement capacity to over 400,000. The new five-storey International Terminal will accommodate the anticipated passenger increase of 7 million people per year.

The airport is bolstered by several advantages and held back by some disadvantages, or remaining bureaucratic problems that need to be rectified.

The airport is much closer to the city core than Narita, just 20 minutes by monorail compared to over an hour for the current primary international airport. In addition, getting to Narita by car takes much longer, as much as two hours in traffic, and water taxies are expensive.

The Keihin Kyuko Railway, which also serves the airport and will have a connection to the International Terminal, provides train access to Shinagawa Station and Yokohama Station, two of the primary rail transport hubs in Japan, making the airport accessible from outside the national capital as well.

However, Japan’s aviation regulations are known to be torturous and are courting the ire of many major American and European airlines, mainly due to the time slots allocated to international flights. Airline services to and from Haneda are allowed 24-hours for flights arriving from a destination less than 1,947 kilometers (1,210 miles) away, according to Tokyo news media.

Airlines operating long-haul services that exceed this distance were recently given clearance to use the airport between 10pm and 7am in the morning, a liberalisation move that has been called “unwieldy” by major European airlines such as Lufthansa.

The timeslot means that airlines from Europe and the East Coast of North America will need to take off in the early hours of the morning to reach Japan at the allocated time and, after a brief turn-around of the plane and crew, will be leaving the airport late at night.

Early morning and late night flights are typically avoided by most passengers due to the havoc it can play with sleeping patterns, which has led to Haneda’s new international status being decried as uncompetitive.

This criticism has been coupled with claims that the airport’s landing fees are too expensive, but this is a criticism repeated about Narita as well, Japan is one of the most expensive countries in the world for foreign airlines.